The Dragon And The Elephant

Predicting when the Chinese will attack India has become the favourite past time of Indian strategists. Recently, it was suggested that China will attack India by 2012 primarily to divert attention from its growing domestic troubles. Though this suggestion received wide press coverage, the Indian media was more interested in sensationalizing the issue than investigating the claims with the seriousness they deserved. Meanwhile, the official Chinese media picked up the story and gave it another spin. It argued that while a Chinese attack on India is highly unlikely, a conflict between the two neighbours could result from an escalation of the aggressive Indian policy toward the present border dispute with China. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese media went on to speculate that the “China will attack India” line might just be a pretext for India’s deployment of more troops in the border areas.

This exchange reflects an undercurrent of uneasiness that exists between the two Asian giants as they continue their ascent up the global hierarchy. Even as the two countries sign seemingly important documents year after year, the distrust between them is actually growing at an alarming rate. Economic cooperation and bilateral political and socio-cultural exchanges may be at an all time high and China today may be India’s largest trading partner, but this has done little to assuage their concerns regarding each other’s intentions. The two sides are locked in a classic security dilemma where any action taken by one is immediately interpreted by the other as a threat to its own interests.

At the global level, the rhetoric is all about cooperation. Indeed, the two sides have worked together on climate change, global trade negotiations and in demanding a restructuring of global financial institutions in view of the global economy’s shifting centre of gravity. At the bilateral level, however, the story is markedly different. This was evident when China took its territorial dispute with India to the Asian Development Bank, where it blocked a loan application by India for development projects in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a state that China continues to claim as part of its own territory. Buoyed by the perception that the Obama administration plans to make its ties with China the centrepiece of its foreign policy in light of growing economic dependence by the United States on China, China has displayed an aggressive stance on India. The suggestion by the Chinese to the U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander that the Indian Ocean should be recognized as a Chinese sphere of influence has raised hackles in New Delhi. China’s lack of support for the U.S.-India civilian nuclear energy cooperation pact, which it tried to block at the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and its obstructionist stance in bringing the terror masterminds of last November’s attacks in Mumbai to justice has further strained ties.

Sino-India frictions are growing and the potential for conflict remains high. Concern in India is increasing over China’s frequent and strident territorial claims along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. The Indians have complained that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of Chinese intrusions into Indian territory over the last two years, most of them along the border in regions of Arunachal Pradesh that China refers to as “Southern Tibet.” For its part, China has upped the ante on the border issue. It protested against the Indian prime minister’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh last year, asserting its claims over the territory, and, in a move that has caught most observers of Sino-India ties by surprise, has vehemently contested every single recent Indian administrative and political action in the state, even denying Chinese visas to Indian citizens of Arunachal Pradesh. The Indian foreign minister recently went on record to say that the Chinese army “sometimes” intrudes on Indian territory, though he added that the issues were being addressed through established mechanisms. The most recent negotiations have been a disappointing failure, with a growing perception in India that China is less than willing to adhere to earlier political understandings on how to address the boundary dispute. A sign that even the broader rhetoric has degenerated considerably was the claim in a recent article by a Chinese analyst connected to China’s Ministry of National Defence that China could “dismember the so-called ‘Indian Union’ with one little move” into as many as 30 states.

India’s challenge remains formidable. While, it has not yet achieved the economic and political profile that China enjoys regionally and globally, it is increasingly bracketed with China as a rising power, an emerging power, even a global superpower. India’s main security concern now is not the increasingly decrepit state of Pakistan but the ever more assertive and strategically capable China. The defeat at the hands of the Chinese in 1962 has psychologically scarred the elite perceptions of China and these are unlikely to change in the near future. China is viewed by India as a growing, aggressive, nationalistic power whose ambitions are likely to reshape the contours of the regional and global power landscape with deleterious consequences for Indian interests. Indian policy makers, however, continue to believe that Beijing is not a short-term threat to India. This belief persists even as defence officials have increased warnings about the disparities between the two countries. The Indian naval chief recently warned that India has neither “the capability nor the intention to match China force for force” in military terms. The former Indian air chief suggested that China is more of a threat to India than Pakistan.

It may well be that the recent hardening of China’s position toward India is a function of its own sense of internal vulnerabilities but that is hardly a consolation to Indian policy makers who have to respond to a public that increasingly wants its nation to assert itself in the region and beyond. India is rather belatedly gearing up to respond with its own diplomatic and military overtures, thereby setting the stage for further Sino-India strategic rivalry.

The rise of China and an active U.S. attempt to build India into a major balancer in Asia has led to the evolution of India’s ties with other countries in the region, such as Japan. Both India and Japan are well aware of China’s not-so-subtle attempts at preventing their rise, something clearly reflected by China’s opposition to United Nations Security Council to include India and Japan as permanent members. China’s status as a permanent member of the Security Council and as a recognized nuclear-weapon state is something that it would be loathe to share with any other state in Asia. India’s “Look East” policy of active engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, and East Asia remains largely predicated upon Japanese support. India’s participation in the East Asia Summit was facilitated by Japan and the East Asia Community proposed by Japan to counter China’s proposal of an East Asia Free Trade Area also includes India. While China has resisted the inclusion of India, Australia, and New Zealand in Asean, Japan has strongly backed the entry of all three nations.

Recent convergence in the strategic priorities of India, the U.S. and Japan notwithstanding, it is unlikely that India would openly become a part of the American- led alliance framework against China. Like most states in the Asia-Pacific, India would not want to antagonize China by ganging up against it. This is despite the fact that India is the country that will be, as it already has been, most affected by a rising China. China’s friendship with Pakistan, its attempts to increase its influence in Nepal, Bangladesh and Burma, its refusal to recognize parts of India such as Arunachal Pradesh, its lack of support for India’s membership to the unsc and other regional and global organizations, and its unwillingness to support the U.S.-India nuclear pact all point toward China’s attempts at preventing the rise of India.

China has always viewed India as a regional player and has tried to confine India to the peripheries of global politics. Today, India's rise and the success of its development model pose a challenge to China in more ways than one. And as the story of India’s success is being celebrated across the world, especially in the West, it is no surprise that China has become edgier in its relationship with India. It was only after the U.S. started courting India that Chinese rhetoric towards its neighbour underwent a modification. Realizing that a close U.S.-India partnership would change the regional balance of power to its disadvantage, China has started tightening the screws on India. It has further entrenched itself in India’s neighbourhood even as Sino- India competition for global energy resources has gained momentum. The development of infrastructure by China in its border regions with India has been rapid and effective while the Indian has been historically lackadaisical. One example of this is that even 60 years after independence, the border state of Arunachal Pradesh remains unconnected by rail to the Indian mainland.

Things are changing slowly with India making some effort to catch up with China by improving infrastructure on its side of the border. It has deployed two additional army divisions, heavy tanks and ramped up its air power in the region that is a bone of contention between India and China. Tensions are inherent in such an evolving strategic relationship, as was underlined in an incident earlier this year when an Indian Kilo class submarine and Chinese warships reportedly engaged in rounds of manoeuvring on their way to the Gulf of Aden to patrol the pirate infested waters, as both countries tried to test for weaknesses in each other’s sonar system. The Chinese media reported that its warships forced the Indian submarine to the surface, a report that was strongly denied by the Indian Navy. Unless managed carefully, the potential for such incidents to turn serious in the future remains high.

Both China and India are rising at the same time in an Asia-Pacific strategic landscape that is in flux. What is causing concern in Asia and beyond is the opacity that seems to surround China’s military build-up, with an emerging consensus that Beijing’s real military spending is at least twice the announced figure. The official figures from the Chinese government do not include the cost of new weapon purchases, research or other prominent items for China’s highly secretive military. All over Asia, there is a growing call for China to be more open about its military intentions and capabilities. While China’s near-term focus remains on preparations for potential problems in the Taiwan Strait, its nuclear- force modernization, growing arsenal of advanced missiles and development of space and cyberspace technologies are rapidly changing the Asian military balance.

A rising China will find it difficult to tolerate a rising India as a potential competitor. Even though India is a long way from challenging Chinese regional predominance, it is unlikely that China will leave anything to chance. China seems likely to continue trying to contain India, a reality that India should be wary of and try to guard against. China’s intentions regarding India may seem entirely peaceful at the moment but that is largely irrelevant in the strategic scheme of things. A troubled history coupled with the structural uncertainties engendered by their simultaneous rise is propelling the two Asian giants into a trajectory that they might find rather difficult to navigate in the coming years.

The elite consensus in India remains one of not allowing China a free hand in shaping the region’s strategic environment. The problem, however, is that India has no real bargaining leverage. Domestic political constraints and lack of any incentive on the part of China has allowed the border problem to fester for far too long. India seems to have lost the battle over Tibet to China, despite the fact that Tibet constitutes China’s only truly fundamental vulnerability vis-à-vis India. India has failed to limit China’s military use of Tibet despite its great implications for Indian security, with the result that Tibet has become a platform for the projection of Chinese military power. India has also found it difficult to condemn Chinese physical assaults on Tibetans and verbal attacks on the Dalai Lama.

To strengthen its bargaining position with China, India will have to gain some sort of leverage over its neighbour, something it could possibly achieve by cultivating states along China’s periphery. Indian policy toward China continues to be viewed largely through the prism of economic growth, with the assumption that the only way to match up to the challenge posed by Beijing is to grow at 7% to 8% over the next decade or so. Yet India will have to work proactively to achieve greater strategic balance in the region over the next few years if it wants to preserve and enhance its own interests. As of now, Indian policy makers have not found a way of doing this.

Harsh V. Pant teaches at King’s College London and is writing a book about India’s China policy for HarperCollins to be released later this year.